


We're Soaring, We're Flying

by crossroadswrite



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - How to Train Your Dragon Fusion, Dumb boys in love tbh, Fluff, Getting Together, Kinda, M/M, also dragons, not really - Freeform, there's references alright
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-26 09:11:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4999060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossroadswrite/pseuds/crossroadswrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Derek works at the stables with the dragons and finally gets his big break to become a dragon rider and Stiles is a brat with a crush and good intentions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're Soaring, We're Flying

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone knows where the title is taken from. [Here's a link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFEO5HP5Azs).

“Your great-great-grandfather was the first dragon rider in this town,” his father starts, one hand on Stiles’ shoulder like a physical manifestation of how many hopes and dreams he has laid upon him. “I expect you to follow in his footsteps, Stiles. It’s our _legacy_ to be the best damn dragon riders we can and protect this town, you hear.”

Stiles sighs, nods once because yes he _hears_. That’s all he’s been hearing since he was old enough to comprehend simple concepts.

“I didn’t hear an answer.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I hear.”

His father, the leader of their people, smiles proudly and claps him on the shoulder. “Good. You’re going to do me proud tomorrow.”

Stiles opens his mouth but his father is already turning his back on him and walking away, leaving Stiles there, rubbing the back of his neck and trying to figure out a way to get out of the bi-annual dragon tournament without disappointing his father.

Look, it’s not that he doesn’t like dragons because, obviously, _dragons_.

It’s basically in his blood to love dragons and everything about them. He freaking adores dragons. He loves studying how they work, their different abilities, their strengths and their weaknesses. He even loves going down to the stables and slowly walking from stall to stall, hiding from grumpy grumps Hale McHandsome and just petting them.

That said, he does _not_ love riding dragons.

Here’s the thing: Stiles is afraid of heights.

He’s not only afraid of heights he _sucks_ at dragon riding. Like, old school sucks. Sucks so much you might as well buy him a pacifier and call him a big whiny baby ‘cause _ohboy_ does he suck.

So yeah, he doesn’t want to be a dragon rider, he’d much prefer to spend his time with a sketchpad and some hiking equipment watching untamed dragons in their natural habitat than actually free falling off of one.

Stiles sighs and decides what he needs is a trip down to the stables and some one on one time with his best girl.

«»

Roscoe is baby blue and lives happily on the biggest stall they have to offer. She is one of their biggest dragons, with each talon the size of Stiles’ hand and teeth sharper than the best knives.

She belonged to his mother. Well, belong, with dragons, is a relative term.

She used to be his mother’s companion until- until Stiles’ mom died.

Which had been difficult on everyone but Stiles and Roscoe especially. She hasn’t let anyone ride her since that day, barely even flies anymore, electing to spend all her time down here, stretched out and enjoying the warmth of the sun.

Stiles scratches under her short neck exactly like she likes.

Roscoe grumbles happily, taps her chin softly on the top of his head.

“But Dad doesn’t listen,” he complains. ”Dad _never_ listens. I bet my great-great-grandfather never had this type of problem.”

Roscoe paws Stiles forward, her paw covering his entire back, and makes him stumble into something akin to a hug. She rubs her chin on his hair, messing it up.

“But you got my back, don’t you?” he grins.

“Who’s there?” he hears call out.

Roscoe perks up, peering over the door of her quarters.

Stiles winces and stumbles to hide behind her. The last thing he needs right now is for _Hale_ to catch him in the stables and kick him out.

He doesn’t understand why Derek Hale doesn’t like him, honestly. Stiles has never done anything to antagonize the guy ever, except maybe being born since Derek appears to be offended by Stiles’ existence alone.

“Hide me,” he begs the dragon.

Roscoe looks at him, not looking very impressed, but dutifully lifting one of her massive wings to hide him from view better.

Stiles peers over the side of her wing, angling his head until his neck cramps so he gets a good view of the doorway without whomever is at the doorway getting a good view of him.

“Anyone in here?” Derek Hale asks, sporting his usual stupid dirt speckled tank top and work gloves like a moron. An attractive, stupidly gentle with dragons moron

Roscoe huffs a little, the air around crackling with electricity.

Derek squints at her. “Are you hiding someone?”

Roscoe growls a little negative, something that sounds like _who me? never!_

“You sure? Because if I find out you are, I’ll stop brushing you.”

Stiles holds his breath when Roscoe freezes. Derek plays _dirty_.

Most dragons have to be brushed at least once a month and it’s usually done with something that looks mildly fatal but helps clear all the old scales and if by the way every single dragon seems to purr under it, feels really nice.

Roscoe makes another negative sound, puffs smoke right into Derek’s face.

Derek raises an eyebrow but doesn’t question any further, takes half a step to leave before he stops himself and leans against the doorjamb, a little tiny smile playing on his lips.

Stiles has no idea how he’s not found right then and there with how loudly his heart starts beating at the sight.

“I talked with Sheriff. He let me be part of the tournament,” he says quietly. “He says I’m good with the dragons and that if I can even place in the top three he’ll talk with the council and persuade them into letting Cora and me move into town.”

Roscoe makes a little thrilled sound and moves forward, head laying on the floor in front of Derek, almost as tall as he is with her head down.

Derek gives her this little private smile and rubs the heel of his hand on the base of her right horn and she starts swishing her tail lazily.

“It’d be nice, you know. Not being an outcast anymore. Cora could start school here instead of getting by with stolen books. She wants to be part of the Night Patrol.”

Stiles forgets sometimes, that because of where Derek came from most of the good people in his little town cast him aside like trash, don’t even let him or any of his family come to school and do normal people things, things you take for granted, things that are _boring_ to you because you take them for granted.

It’s not the Hales fault that the town they were born in had a long history of dragon hunting and being direct arch-nemesis with Stiles’ own town.

They didn’t ask to be born there.

“Anyway, I have things to do. You be good and I might bring you a treat later, alright?”

Roscoe purrs loudly, very gently headbutting Derek’s chest which makes the other boy puff a little breath of laughter and pat her one last time before he turns to leave.

When he’s far enough that he won’t hear Stiles, Roscoe lifts her wing and cranes her neck to peer down at him, almost upside down.

“Sometimes I forget,” he says quietly. “That no matter how much I complain there’s people with worse issues.”

Stiles looks at the doorway Derek had been standing against for a couple of moments, gears turning in his head.

He knows that this year’s competition is fierce and that there are a lot of good dragon riders. There are dragon riders from the lineage of the _first_ dragon riders, the ones that rode alongside Stiles great-great-grandfather. It’s going to be near impossible to win and Derek is good, but he doesn’t get a lot of chances to fly or train many of the special skills that are needed for the tournament.

“Maybe I should help him,” he contemplates.

Roscoe swishes her spiked tail in agreement.

“Don’t tell him, though. He’d punch me in the face.”

Roscoe huffs at him, seemingly amused, before leaning down and demanding more neck scritches.

«»

The tournament is a bit of an affair.

It happens twice a year and it’s made up of a number of events, mostly physical, like dodging and stabbing and running and, you know, _riding_.

It’s supposed to be the admission exams for being certified to ride a dragon but someone somewhere along the line decided _hey it’s fun to see teenagers humiliate themselves for our entertainment we should make a festival out of this!!_ and so it was.

Stiles arrives late for the line-up and almost trips face first into the floor, he would’ve if Derek hadn’t grabbed him by the elbow and helped keep him upright.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, looking up at the auditorium and catching his father’s relieved look.

_Gods_ , his father is going to hate him after this.

Derek is looking at him oddly, eyebrows doing something complicated as he tries to figure Stiles out.

“What’re you even doing here?” he demands. “You don’t _want_ this.”

Stiles side eyes him, trying to listen to what Coach has to say so he won’t make a complete idiot of himself. It’s already enough what he plans to do.

“For the shits and giggles, _obviously_.”

Derek growls at him.

“You’ve been spending too much time with the dragons,” Stiles helpfully informs him, mere seconds before Coach blows the whistle signaling the first challenge.

«»

They’re on the break for the third and final part of the tournament when Derek corners him and shoves him roughly against a wall.

“Stop it,” he hisses.

Stiles winces, pain flaring up when all his tender bruises and cuts smack against the hard surface he’s been pushed against.

“Stop what?” Stiles says, makes his voice as innocent as he possibly can.

“I can _see_ what you’re doing and you need to _stop it_.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’re helping me win.”

“Why would I want to do something like-“

Derek smacks a hand next to Stiles’ head.

“Stiles,” he growls. “You’re going to get into trouble, you’re hurting yourself.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fi-“

“Look, you need this, they don’t. Every single one of the people out there can do this again next tournament in just six months. You have a chance here to-“

“How do you- nevermind. How well do you think that will go over when people notice you’re helping me, huh? Why are you even _helping_!” Derek whisper-shouts.

“Because I like you!” Stiles explodes, pushing back against Derek’s chest because wow had he been close just two seconds ago. He’s working on getting worked up about how Derek seems to think it’s okay just shoving him around when it hits him what he just said.

Derek _stares_. Eyes wide and mouth parted and looking so- so hopeful that Stiles feels like doing something stupid. Like kissing him, and because today seems to be the day for doing stupid shit he does. Leans right in and presses their lips together like it’s going out of style and then the most wonderful thing happens.

Derek kisses back.

Stiles, in all honesty, had been fully prepared for Derek to push him away, maybe throw a punch or two, but he had not been expecting him to kiss back. That’s not the kind of stuff that normally happens in his life.

“I like you too,” Derek says, very quietly against Stiles’ lips as if he makes his voice go any higher than that he’ll somehow break it.

“So let me help you.”

Derek leans in again, presses a hard kiss into his lips. “No. I need to do this by myself. I need to _prove myself_ to the people of this town. I don’t want to win just because the Head Rider’s kid helped me out.”

“Okay,” Stiles concedes. “Okay.” He’s already given Derek a good head start anyway.

«»

The last event in the tournament is a race. Every rider is given a dragon and a course that passes through the highest point of the closest mountain where there are three bags of flour waiting.

The first three to arrive with a bag of flour wins a truly ridiculous amount of points. This is basically what decides who wins and who goes home sucking on their thumb.

Stiles faces the dragon he’s been given for the race and swallows. He might’ve made a slight miscalculation when he planned on helping Derek out because he’s going to have to _ride._ A dragon. _In the sky_. Where he could free fall to his death at any time.

_Shit_.

“Ready?” Coach calls, whistle poised in front of his lips.

Everyone climbs on top of their dragons.

Stiles’, a fiery red thingy that keeps huffing every three seconds, shifts uncomfortably beneath him.

“Set!”

“Fuck fuckity fucking fuck fuckery fuckerton in fucktown,” he mumbles, clutching the steer.

“ _Go_.”

“I’m gonna die,” he says lowly, and then kicks his dragon into flight.

The dragon beneath him seems to barely have been tamed or even ridden before, flying erratically and fast, being prone to turning too much to the left to the point Stiles honestly thinks he’s about to fall off.

“Please don’t kill me,” he begs, and barely misses hitting headfirst into a rock.

He looks around, searching for the other contestants and sees most of them pulling ahead, Derek riding his dragon with the kind of grace and efficiency you only see in riding manuals.

Stiles lets himself get caught on the sight he makes for a minute, watch how he’s competing with Scott for second place, Erica effortlessly pulling ahead of them both.

His dragon makes a startled sound and pirouettes, turns the saddle and itself upside down just in time to miss a rock formation. Stiles has less than a fraction of a second to realize what’s happening before he’s falling inevitably and surely towards the ocean and _ohgod_ this is it. This is how he dies, drowned in the ocean, just like his mother did.

He closes his eyes and holds his breathe and fucking _prays_ and something digs into his shoulder blades painfully but he’s not falling anymore, suddenly he’s gliding.

Stiles snaps his eyes open and looks ahead into the open sky. Darkness tilts his head down and smiles toothily at Stiles.

“Hey buddy,” Stiles croaks, barely managing to form words at this point, hands reaching to clutched around the dragon’s ankles like a vice.

“Are you alright?” Derek shouts over the wind, sounding panicked. “Stiles! Stiles are you-“

“I’m okay. I’m alright, just- just get me into solid ground and I’ll love you forever.”

Derek steers Darkness towards a cliff’s edge and gently lowers his dragon until Stiles can drop down to the ground and immediately sprawl on his back, fists clutching at the blades of grass beneath him as he pants into the sky.

Darkness lands a couple of feet from him, Derek hopping off and falling to his knees at his side, one hand on Stiles’ cheek as he looks him over frantically.

“Are you hurt? Did you hit something on your way down?”

“No,” he says and Derek sighs, almost falling on top of Stiles with the force of his relief.

“Don’t do that again,” he chastises.

Stiles swallows and feels weirdly like laughing. Maybe he’s a little bit hysterical. “I can guarantee you I won’t. Shit that was scary.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

Derek sits on the grass beside him and reaches for his hand, clasping their fingers together.

They stay quiet for a little bit while Stiles tries to get his breath back and come to terms with the fact that he didn’t just die horribly, didn’t just die almost exactly like his mother had died.

“You’re going to lose the race,” Stiles tells Derek. “If you lose the race you lose the tournament.”

“I don’t care.”

“But Derek-“

“You almost _died_ Stiles. Right now I could care less about the stupid tournament. I’ll find something else if I need to.”

Stiles contemplates the sky for the time it takes him to digest that, and then he says, “Wow, you really like me.”

“I let you watch the hatching of baby dragons. Of course I like you.”

Stiles grins at the sky and squeezes Derek’s hand.

“For whatever it’s worth I really like you too. And I’ll help. I’ll figure some way to convince my dad and I’ll help.”

“You don’t need to.”

“Didn’t you hear me just now? I like you, I want to.”

«»

In the end Stiles doesn’t need to come up with any convoluted plan to convince his father and the good townsfolk to let the Hales move into town. In the end, after they all saw Derek giving up on his only chance of winning to save Stiles they agree pretty unanimously to just let the Hales move in.

Cora is a little brat and starts school, almost immediately crushing everyone that dares stand in her way at all the dragon related classes.

Lydia pretty much becomes _interested_ in her the very second she lays eyes upon her. But so does Erica and so does Isaac and it’s hilarious to see which of them wins over her affection.

Derek just grumbles and stomps into the stables, muttering about little sisters and how they’re clearly not old enough for this kind of thing how they’re never old enough forever and ever because _ew_.

He complains about it to every dragon within hearing range and they hear him patiently.

Stiles finally manages to sit his dad down and have a conversation about how much he does _not_ want to become a dragon rider and his dad half surprises him by immediately saying Stiles can do whatever makes him happy.

So he does.

He gets a house, all for his own, and then later shares it with Derek and a little dragon or two, and he goes out where the wild dragons are and just sits and observes, tirelessly taking notes.

Derek joins him, decked in official uniform and claiming that he needs to protect Stiles so he doesn’t trip and brain himself on a tree or something, when in all reality he just likes to hold Stiles’ hand and take a long walk through remote places, talking in hushed tones about important and unimportant things and stopping every few steps to kiss Stiles whenever he is feeling like it.

Everything is simple and there are days that he has to thank the Gods for being in the right place at the right time and for almost falling to his death, because without that he wouldn’t get Derek, and he can’t very well imagine a world without Derek now that he has him.

**Author's Note:**

> more dragons, who is surprised to be honest


End file.
